The Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) Annual Report summarises our principal research and non-research work in 2016-17, which examined key aspects of the international humanitarian system. It explored challenges within the humanitarian architecture, the role of state foreign policy in shaping humanitarian action, humanitarian access in conflict and the lives and livelihoods of refugees in protracted displacement.

Our core body of research was complemented by high-level analysis on the role of cash in humanitarian responses in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mozambique, Nepal and Ukraine.

We engaged with humanitarian practitioners through the Humanitarian Practice Network, and promoted academic debate within the sector through editorship of Disasters journal, and through our senior-level course on conflict and humanitarian response.

As part of our extensive programme of communications and public affairs, we held 23 conferences, courses, roundtables and public events on topics including refugees in the Middle East, the famines in East Africa and humanitarian access in Ukraine and Syria. HPG staff also spoke at 73 external events in 24 countries, and we received almost 1,000 pieces of media coverage across a range of issues.

Report by the Overseas Development Institute